History of Us
by EllieF
Summary: They're going out to end a war tomorrow, and they're the only ones on earth who know it.


**History of Us**

-2010-

Matt does a decent job of acting like his attention's on the screen of his DS while Mello talks to Hal, but Mello knows he's listening to every word.

He hangs up and slumps forward, elbows on his knees, and the noises of Matt's game suddenly stop. A rustle of motion, a creak of the floor, and Matt's kneeling by Mello's chair.

"Hey. Tell me a story."

Mello laughs, which might have been the point. "What the fuck?"

"I dunno, I'm sitting at your feet, it's what I thought of. Tell me... what we're gonna do when this is over."

That's the question, isn't it? For once in his life, Mello doesn't know the answer, but that doesn't mean he can't bullshit one on the fly. "We'll go somewhere we've never been. New Zealand. You can learn how to surf, and I can laugh at you."

"A _story_, not a plan. I'm fucking sick of _plans_." He looks up at Mello, as easy to read as always. _Tell me there'll be more than this_, is what he's really saying.

Mello sighs, and slides down onto the floor, and what the hell, this is the last night. No matter what happens tomorrow, everything will be different. He slings an arm around Matt's shoulders, and Matt leans in closer.

"Okay," Matt says. "I'll tell _you_ a story."

"Come on, don't act stupid." Which isn't the same as _being_ stupid.

"Don't act mean." He lights a cigarette, leans away from Mello to exhale. "Once upon a time, hush," he begins, and Mello closes his mouth on a sarcastic remark about fairy tales.

"Once upon a time there was this kid who'd never fit in anywhere. Eight foster homes in nine years, and as soon as he started to settle in anywhere, they'd yank the rug out from under him."

"Matt, you don't—"

"Yeah I do, listen. All he cared about was books and games 'cause _people_ had let him down. Then he went to a new place, and there was this asshole."

Mello keeps his mouth shut, but pokes Matt in the ribs, and Matt laughs. "This _asshole kid_ who wouldn't let him be. And he didn't have any idea what was so interesting about him that the other kid would bother—"

Mello has to interrupt. "He wasn't afraid. That asshole? Liked a challenge."

-2001-

The new kid was immersed deeply enough in his video game that he didn't even look up when Mello rolled some foil from his chocolate-bar wrapper into a ball and threw it at him. Mello _had_ just been messing around, but being ignored was like a dare, and Mello never could resist dares. He rolled another pellet and tossed it.

Nothing.

One more, and this one bounced off those stupid-looking goggles the new kid had on, and he ducked his head irritably. "Quit it!"

Mello was too shocked to reply at first. He pushed himself out of the chair and stalked over, stood in front of the new kid with his arms crossed. "Do you know who I am?"

"Nope."

This was unprecedented. Mello may have been only eleven, and skinny on top of that, but he had a reputation. He'd worked _hard_ at it. _No one_ was allowed to blow him off for a stupid game. He plucked the GameBoy out of the new kid's hands, and the kid stared at him. "_Dude_."

Mello held it out of reach. "I'm the guy you don't ignore."

"What the _fuck_? What's it to you, anyway?"

Mello glowered. "I've seen your test scores. You're not the big fish anymore."

"I'm— what?" He looked genuinely baffled, or else he was such a good actor that part of his act was having pretended he _couldn't_ act, except— Mello's mind was going in circles and it was the new kid's fault. Obviously.

"Do you _seriously_ not get it?"

The music playing in the game changed, and the kid's shoulders sagged. "Aw, man, I hadn't even saved."

Mello relented and handed it back over. "You got a name?"

"Matt." He was already pressing buttons.

There were letters in fading magic marker around the white rubber of his battered high-tops. Mello squinted at them, and Matt gave him a look and tucked his feet up under him, out of sight.

"What are those?" Mello demanded.

"Nothing. Why don'cha bugger off?"

That had sounded like Matt's first go at saying "bugger," and Mello snickered. He was going, but he had to get a parting shot in. "Learn to swear."

-2010-

"It drove me batshit that you wouldn't tell me," Mello says.

"Ha, I know." Matt leans over and dumps the cigarette butt into a Mountain Dew can, grinning at the hiss like he always does, then settles back into the curve of Mello's arm. "But it was _private_, y'know? And anyway, you pissed me off."

"_You_ pissed _me_ off, and you weren't even trying."

"Oh, I was kinda trying."

-2001-

If there was one response to him that Mello couldn't _stand_, it was indifference. He was sure Near's was put on exactly because Near _knew_ Mello couldn't stand it. Matt's, he wasn't sure about.

He'd sit behind Matt in class and kick at his chair every so often, just seldom enough that it could have been accidental. He discovered Matt liked to hide in the stacks in the library, sitting on the floor between little-trafficked shelves and playing his games on mute, and made a point of needing books from there. Sometimes Matt would look like he knew what Mello was up to, and didn't know what to think about it, but usually he just ignored him.

Today Mello had other things on his mind as he stomped along toward Roger's office, Mrs. Carstairs following behind. He half-hoped someone else would be in trouble so he could rant to them about how unfair this all was. His argument that yes, he had started the fight, but Quentin and Stefan should be in at least as much trouble as he was, if not more, for ganging up on him, had fallen on deaf ears so far.

Matt was the next-to-last person he expected to see waiting outside the office. He couldn't tell for sure because of the goggles, but Matt's nose and mouth had that blotchy, rubbed-raw look that meant he'd probably been crying not long ago. Mello decided not to mention it, and sprawled on the bench next to the other boy. "So. What did _you_ do?" he said when Carstairs was safely out of earshot.

"Smoking," Matt muttered.

"You're, like, _nine_."

"'m almost twelve, shut up." He stared at the floor, hunching his shoulders as if trying to disappear.

"They're not going to send you away."

Matt looked at Mello, then right back at the floor. "They're not?"

"Not for _that_. How often do you think I get in trouble?"

Matt _might_ have laughed. "A lot."

"I'm still here, aren't I?"

"Yeah." He unhunched, just a little. Mello saw now that the letters on his high-tops were surnames, run together in a chain: HARRISDELINSKYSAWYERPETERSEN, and more, all the way around the edge.

"What do those mean, on your shoes?"

Matt gave him a long look, apparently weighing the odds that Mello would make fun of him, and addressed the floor again when he answered. "The ones that didn't last."

_Oh._ "Your foster homes."

"Yeah."

"Why did you do that?"

"I dunno. Lots of kids do."

Mello's chocolate had been confiscated, so he chewed on his lower lip as he thought about this. It seemed sad and brave all at once, and Mello decided then and there that he didn't just want Matt to quit ignoring him. He wanted to be friends. "You can stop now," he said.

Matt's face was mostly hidden by his hair, but Mello was sure he smiled. "Maybe."

-2010-

"That's when I got it," Mello says.

"Nah. You got me all along. You knew I needed something to shake me out of not caring. Even if neither one of us knew that was what you were doing."

"That kid," Mello says, quietly, "did he end up writing the asshole's name on his shoe?"

Matt shifts away, offended. "Of course not."

"Would he have done, if it hadn't been a secret?"

Matt shrugs. "Maybe. He didn't understand it at first, why his best friend would ditch him."

"I didn't ditch you," Mello says.

"I know. But this kid was only fourteen and clueless, so he didn't get anything except that his friend was _gone_."

"I had to do it that way. Come back here. No, closer."

Matt makes a show of grumbling that they both know is fake, and rests his head on Mello's shoulder. For all that Mello has always acted like respecting personal space is something that happens to other people, he's never just sat like this, not with Matt, not with anyone, but it feels right. They're going out to end a war tomorrow, and they're the only ones on earth who know it.

-2004-

"Let me come with you."

"No."

Mello kept shoving clothes into the bag, and Matt leaned against the door. "M, come on. What the hell am I gonna do here?"

Mello tried to zip the duffel bag, couldn't, and threw some shirts onto the floor. "_No_. It's not gonna be like one of your fucking games. You don't get to start over if you fuck up." Matt opened his mouth, but Mello cut him off. "Don't ask me again." _If you do, I might not be able to say no again._

He had some idea already of what he needed to do. Near could _have_ the title; it wouldn't do him any good. He'd plod along, building a case like one of those stupid dominoes setups, piece by painstaking piece, while Mello was out in the _real_ world. L wasn't the only one who wanted Kira's head on a platter. Mello would find the allies Near was too squeamish to make use of, the kind of people who could _make shit happen_ with the right guiding hand. And he'd end this once and for all.

"I'll be back before you can even miss me."

Matt frowned, took a step toward him, changed his mind. Changed it again, and grabbed Mello in a hug so tight, Mello thought he felt his ribs creak.

Matt stepped back as quickly as he'd darted in. "You'd fucking well better be." His cheeks had flushed with embarrassment, or anger, or both.

"I promise."

-2010-

"He didn't mean to lie," Mello says. "Even he wasn't that much of an asshole.

Matt doesn't lift his head; he just nods, hair soft against Mello's neck, the motion smoke-scented.

"What did the kid do then?"

"He sulked for a while, and then he realized: his best friend was out there, right in the trenches. Maybe it'd be months, maybe years, but the call was coming someday. And if he wanted to answer it, he needed to be more than a geek who couldn't tear himself away from Final Fantasy."

"I wish—" Mello says, and Matt shushes him.

"It's okay. That's not the world we live in."

He's always been like that, seemingly able to read Mello's mind. It's his own brand of magic, one Mello superstitiously doesn't examine too closely for fear of jinxing it. He turns, pulls Matt closer, and it's an embrace now, not a buddy-buddy arm around the shoulders, but this feels right too.

"Whatever happens tomorrow," Matt says, "I'm glad I'm with you."

"Don't get soppy on me," Mello says, but he hears that his own voice has gotten husky.

"No, listen. Who knows where I would've ended up. Probably as some two-bit hacker without the sense to cover my own ass. I'd wake up dead one morning and never even know what got me."

"Don't talk like that."

"I'm trying to thank you."

"Matt. You're so fucking weird." He wants to say _Don't talk like that_ again: Don't make it sound like this is the end.

"Hey, I know you." Matt sits up, and pushes his goggles onto his forehead, the way he does when he wants to make sure Mello's paying attention. "All or nothing, yeah? I know why you left, why you didn't call for so long. You were probably right. Sometimes you are."

Mello rolls his eyes, like he knows is expected of him at this point, but he also knows Matt isn't done.

"The point is, I _want_ to be here. I wouldn't choose anything else."

Mello's the one who said _Don't get soppy_, but if he's ever going to do this, now's the time. He leans over and kisses Matt on the lips, a soft kiss, almost chaste. A "thank you," a "someday," or a "next time around." Matt gives a smile that wavers before sticking, and Mello's sure he understood all of that and more.


End file.
